Abilene Zoo in Texas is the only zoo in its region. It experiences incredible market penetration, but is still a small, municipal parks department zoo—20 acres and 250k visitors. With potential land to grow and new adjacent attractions opening soon, the zoo is poised to grow into a large facility.

Frank Buck Zoo is a small zoo in a small town. Although today the zoo is experiencing a massive market penetration, the zoo’s lack of identity and differentiation means future success is dependent on creating strong repeatable experiences for it’s local / regional resident visitors.

The Caldwell Zoo in Tyler, Texas is a large ‘small’ zoo located in a small town. Drawing 250,000 in annual attendance from a drive time of about 1.5 hours, the family zoo is a great example of the best of small zoos—lovingly and thoughtfully designed using a blend of modern, innovative zoo design techniques with clean, timeless designs and light touches of theming set in a lush landscape with water features. A timeless, beautiful zoo borne from love—and a desire to be a community asset.

The 20-acre private zoo tucked into the hillside on the outskirts of growing Austin, Texas metro has plenty of challenges to tackle, but the beauty of the site and its proximity to Austin (and being the only zoo within an easy drive of the city) means the Zoo has almost unlimited untapped potential to become very successful—and a “weird” little gemstone to the community.

As a single 40-something who consciously chose cats over kids, I know my limitations when it comes to understanding the intricacies of childhood learning. You might see this as a challenge for a zoo designer, but I guess I just always thought about designing experiences that hit the emotional wire that runs through each of us, regardless of age, sparking that special connection people have with animals. I’ve never been a believer in heavy informational signage, hoping that emotional connection will instead drive people to google (verb) their newly found favorite animal.

Yesterday, I discovered this fascinating new study that shows the best way to convince an adult of an argument (specifically, in this study, related to climate change) is to get their kids to make the argument for you. And, if they have a daughter, all the better, because as we ALL know, girls are better at communication and deep thinking (no haters…the study says this!).

The implications of this study to zoos and aquariums are immense. The study, in general, provides yet more evidential support of zoo and aquarium experiences being critically important. Not only do we have the opportunity to connect with people of all ages EMOTIONALLY, but we’ve now unlocked the key to impacting the minds and possibly the actions of adults, too. We already assumed children were sponges of information (if they are interested in a subject), but now we know the importance of those sponges—beyond building the foundation of thoughtful, empathetic, conservation-minded future adults. Those sponges could be the perfect delivery mechanisms for conservation change for today’s adults. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. The question is now, does that dog have a daughter?

The study showed that not only are daughters better at convincing parents, but daughters are better specifically at convincing dear old dad. I wonder if there is an age limit, because the nostalgia of a blond, buck-toothed, bespectacled pre-teen in a pink polka-dotted dress dancing on dad’s size 15 shoes at the daddy-daughter dance is a powerful tonic egging me on to attempt to break through dad’s climate change denial built up from endless hours of FOX News viewing. I’ll let you know if I change his mind.

In the meantime, take a look at the study, summarized in Scientific American here, and let’s work on connecting the informational dots between emotional, inspiring experiences and what everyday people can do to make the world a better place for all living things. Including those old dogs…